We Must Be Growing 4-Leaf Clovers

Hillbilly good fortune abounds.

The Pony WON his spelling bee at Basementia on Friday. OK, maybe he can't be declared the sole winner, because the contest of 30 spellers from grades 6-8 was stopped at the final 3, with all of them advancing to the District Spelling Bee on February 7. But still, The Pony was ecstatic, bringing home a certificate of winnership, and a plaque, and a word list for practicing his craft. I was able to sneak over to Basementia on my plan time and witness the practice round, plus rounds 1 and 2. My mom was there to support The Pony for the entire bee, having canceled and appointment for a permanent. She reports that The Pony did well with the words he was given. That other students had words like 'depth', but our Pony received 'peninsula', 'adjacent', and 'indescribable'. We argued about 'indescribable' in T-Hoe, on the ride to #1's basketball game. The Pony was asked to arbitrate the dropped E issue, but reported that he could not remember how he spelled the word, but that it was RIGHT, whatever it was. HooRah for the 6th-grade Pony and his victory!

I am pleased to report that Newmentia's basketball team did not have their butts handed to them on a platter by their archrival on Friday night. In fact, the JV team WON their game, and #1 even got to play for about 1:55 with a normal game clock. Making good use of his time, he got a pass, dribbled away from a defender (which is something new, as he used to freeze like a deer in headlights), passed to his buddy (who could not grasp the handle, possibly due to a slight deflection from the opponent), hustled back on a fast break and got in the middle of the opponent's pass (deflecting it to Starter, which saved a lay-up), and received an inbounds pass without error. Quite a productive little episode of court time, in a game where we never expected the subbing of the scrubs. The varsity team came within 3 points of winning, with :20 seconds left in the game, but that darned ol' archrival pulled it out to stay at #1 in Missouri Class 3 prep basketball with a record of 17-0.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom WON $50 on a $2 scratch-off ticket in the parking lot just before the game. Having stopped buying tickets over the last year, except for sporadic wild hairs, I picked up three of the $2 tickets when I stopped to gas up T-Hoe for the basketball game excursion. The Pony didn't want to scratch, and I forgot about them until we got to the game. The Pony told me I had time to scratch them before we went in. The first two were duds, and I asked The Pony if he was sure he didn't want to try one, what with his good luck at winning the spelling bee. He agreed, and I handed him a new penny to scratch with instead of my 'loser' penny. The Pony scratched one scratch and declared, "Winner!" He continued to scratch, finding two more winning numbers. Pessimist H asked, "What did you win?" and The Pony sighed and told him, "We don't check the prize until we know how many winners we have!" He then proceeded to scratch the prizes, and informed us: "Twenty dollars. Ten dollars. Twenty dollars." Not bad for a six-dollar investment.

More on the disbursement of those winnings tomorrow.